


Odd One

by Sicklywrites



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Main story spoilers, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 10:17:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6002172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sicklywrites/pseuds/Sicklywrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She wants to tell him. She wants to to tell him what he really is. But how do you tell a child with such a smile that he is no child at all?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Odd One

**Author's Note:**

> (As of 4/09/16: Changed the sole survivor's name)

There was something surreal about watching Shaun kicking a kickball across the street of Sanctuary Hills, Dogmeat barking happily, chasing him in great leaps and over excited bounds. Piper even brought Nat to the little town, which was now vibrant with life it hadn’t seen for centuries. Shaun had really taken to Nat, and even Piper, who he considered a big-big sister.

Nat kicked the ball right back, Dogmeat following it with a tail wagging so hard it was taking his butt with it. You knew Dogmeat was happy when his entire rear end wagged.

Nick was standing to the side, smiling. Jane knew, although it was never said, that Nick had a soft spot for Shaun. It might have been because he was her son – or at least a version of her son – but it was more likely the fact that he was a synth. Perhaps it was both.

“Mr. Valentine, do you want to play?” Shaun asked politely, holding the dirty red ball in his hands, Dogmeat sitting and panting patiently beside him.

“Oh, no, kid, I’m sorry,” Nick said, shaking his head, “I-I’m no good at ball games.”

“Neither is Dogmeat but he’s having fun!” Shaun giggled. His laughter was bittersweet.

“You should play, Mr. Valentine,” Nat nodded, her shoelaces hanging loose at either side of her feet and her skirt hanging low and torn. There was something charming about her, though.

Jane stood up from her seat in front of her house and approached with a smile not entirely real.

“I’ll play if you do, Nick,” she smirked at him, and when his eyes lit up the smile was real again.

“Well that’s an offer I can’t refuse,” he grinned. “Alright, I’ll play.”

Watching Nick run around without his coat on, just in his shirt, suspenders and dirty slacks, was probably more fun than the game itself. What really made Shaun and Jane laugh was when Nat kicked the ball so high it skimmed his head and his hat came flying off. The look of shock in his face was priceless.

By the end of the game there were more than the four of them in on this informal game. Piper and MacCready had joined with Nick and Nat, and Hancock and Deacon had joined Jane and Shaun.

It was truly the most fun Jane had had in over two hundred years, and seeing them all like this she realised the friends she had made. Watching Deacon fly head first into the concrete because he tripped over the American flag around his waist, witnessing the surprising skill Deacon had around a ball, admiring Piper’s crazy competitiveness and Mac’s determination to win – it was like having a family again. But every time her eyes met with Shaun’s, so innocent, naïve and happy, her heart sank.

* * *

Nick’s robotic hand trailed up Jane’s arm as they sat together, the radio playing behind them.

“You’re thinkin’ about something,” he said, resting his head on the top of hers.

“You know what I’m thinking about, Nick.”

He sighed.

“I do.”

She held onto his hand, closing her eyes.

“How am I going to tell him?” she asked, honestly looking for advice. It wasn’t something she did very often, but when she did, it was always him that she went to.

“I really don’t know, doll. There’s no… easy way to say it,” he said, “but when you do, if he ever has any troubles you don’t know how to deal with… any… identity crisis he may or may not have, I’ll be there if you need me. I’ll get it.”

“That makes me feel better and worse at the same time,” she frowned.

“Look, you don’t have to tell him, but I know you will.”

“I just don’t know how.”

“I’ll do it with you, if you want. It might make it easier, if he has questions,” he said, running a thumb along her knuckle. “But you know, you’re his mother. He needs his mom.”

“He’ll know I’m not _really_ —”

“Hey,” he scolded. “You are. He might not be one hundred percent human, but he’s as biologically yours as he was in your arms two hundred years ago. It’s just… a little odd how it happened.”

Jane snuggled into his chest and calmed her breathing.

“You’re right, but I still don’t want to agree with you.”

Nick smiled and kissed her forehead.

“If he can look at a super mutant and a ghoul for the first time ever within an hour of being in the outside world, he can take this little bit of information. It won’t change much,” he said. “You’d be surprised what kids can handle.”

She sighed again.

“You know, you’re still the reason that little guy exists. Don’t worry about anything else.”

* * *

Shaun rested against Jane in her bed, his fist curled up and rested against his lips, his head on her chest. She read to him, just as any mother would, he thought, but there was something missing in his head that he couldn’t make sense of. He thought about it all the time like a little thought that had infected his brain.

When the happily ever after happened and the book had closed, Jane wrapped her arm around him and kissed his head. They stayed like that for a while in the quiet, until he had to break the silence.

“I really like Mr. Valentine,” he said simply, “I really like that he’s different looking. And he has a cool coat.”

Jane smiled with her lips to his hair and corrected the folds of his sleeves.

“He does have a cool coat, doesn’t he?”

“You really like him, too, don’t you?” he asked, “I mean, Piper said you and him are really good friends but like… kissing friends. Does that mean you like him different?”

“Yes, me and Mr. Valentine are kissing friends,” she said. “And you know you can call him Nick, he doesn’t mind.”

“Valentine sounds cooler.”

Jane chuckled and nodded.

“Fair enough.”

“I like him though. He’s nice to me.”

“Is anyone not nice to you?” Jane asked, a little stern.

“Nat put a bug in my shirt once but I got her back,” he said, and started giggling. “Hancock said to put even more bugs in her bed for a surprise.”

Jane laughed with him.

“That’s sounds like him.”

“Hancock is really nice, too. I think people are mean to him because of his face, but that doesn’t make him different, you know?” he explained, “Hancock does really nice things and I think that sort of means more than what he looks like.”

“It does,” Jane smiled proudly. “You’re absolutely right.”

“Mr. Valentine told me about how the people at Diamond City started liking him. I think that’s how I understood,” he explained. “It doesn’t matter if you’re made of metal or your skin looks like a raisin.”

“Shaun, don’t say the raisin thing around Hancock, it’s mea—”

“No, that’s what he said about himself,” Shaun giggled again. Jane grinned. Of course he did. “But yeah, Deacon said to me that synths are people, too, but they’re made instead of born.”

Jane nodded silently and sadly.

“But if they do good, it doesn’t matter,” Shaun added, looking up to his mom with happy little eyes. “Does it?”

Shaun didn’t need to know about being a synth. He already knew.


End file.
